


Surface Potential

by recrudescence



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Nipple Play, Rimming, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-12
Updated: 2011-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after the Fischer job, Arthur was incepted.</p><p>Inspired by a prompt from the kink meme: <i>Arthur finds Eames's prominent nipples really sexy. He can't stop sucking and biting, pinching and fingering them. Eames can come from it.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Surface Potential

Shortly after the Fischer job, Arthur was incepted.

It was Ariadne, in all her I’m-still-in-college-and-therefore-allowed-to-say-these-things-while-intoxicated magnificence, who planted the seed in his head.

They were out for a celebratory pint before splitting up for the evening, which should have been nothing more than a few hours of well-deserved uncomplicatedness. Then Eames’s torso took the full brunt of a gin and tonic wielded by Ariadne’s zealously gesturing fist and as a result he ended up disappearing to the bathroom and reemerging in his undershirt, still wet.

After apologizing again, Ariadne looked him up and down and announced, “You seriously have the perkiest nipples I’ve ever seen on a man.”

Eames actually seemed to find this assessment amusing. Arthur tried not to asphyxiate on his own hormones.

Ariadne tapped him on the shoulder with a blessedly empty hand. “Doesn’t he, Arthur? They’re so…bitable.” She stole another glance at Eames, looking dangerously pensive.

“Get a room,” Yusuf advised. Arthur could almost forgive him for his stunt with the sedative in light of such wisdom.

“Eames isn’t my type and I’ve already got a boyfriend,” Ariadne said loftily. “But he’d probably think you’re hot, too,” she added, as if there was any likelihood of Eames’s feelings being hurt. “Quality nipples defy sexuality.”

Cobb blinked. “I don’t know whether to get her another drink or never let her near alcohol again. What do you think?”

“Hey, Eames, did you ever have piercings?” Ariadne interjected.

Arthur’s vodka martini surged gleefully through his bloodstream as he upended it.

Granted, he’d always known Eames was attractive, but Arthur thought a lot of people were attractive. And yes, maybe he’d thought about sleeping with him the same way he casually imagined what it would be like to sleep with several people he’d never _actually_ sleep with, like Bill Gates and Kanye West and the contortionists from Cirque du Soleil, but now Ariadne and alcohol had him thinking that fucking Eames would be the greatest thing in the known world. It helped that he was hard under the table and besides, Eames was actually incredibly clever and he hadn’t once screwed up his role in the plan and they’d just performed a fucking _inception_ and his mouth was mesmerizing and he looked marvelous even in gin-dampened cotton, so why not? Arthur had never thought much of his own nipples, small and not all that sensitive, but Eames made him want to try new things and learn every bit of his body and Arthur was never one to turn down that sort of educational experience.

Cobb was saying his goodbyes, wanting to head back home so he could get up early and cook breakfast for his kids, which would probably result in flames and carnage and his mother-in-law’s despair, but his enthusiasm was incorrigible. With him gone, Arthur took advantage of his newly available aisle access and followed Eames to the bar.

From there, it was only a matter of getting smashed enough to attack Eames in the bathroom.

\---

Attack was perhaps too strong of a word, but it was the first one that sprang to mind when Arthur was washing his hands while Eames stripped off his undershirt and held it under the hand dryer in order to try and work away a little more of the stain. From the looks of it, there wasn’t much progress being made, but that just meant Arthur had a heart-stoppingly detailed view of a broad back and tattoos spilling over way too many muscles and sweet merciful _Christ_ , those shoulders.

Arthur didn’t normally wax poetical when he was thinking with an alcohol-addled brain, but Eames’s shoulders were wide and hard and _made_ for having his mouth all over them. And his nails digging into them. And his heels braced against them. He wondered wildly if it would be too ridiculous if he asked Eames to do a few push-ups just to see everything flex, then decided against it because bathroom floors tended to be disgusting.

At the hand dryer, Eames was critically regarding his shirt but hadn’t yet pulled it back on. His nipples were still hard even though it was, in Arthur’s opinion, uncomfortably warm.

 _Bitable_ , Ariadne had said.

“You like biting?”

Eames didn’t seem surprised or offended at Arthur’s forwardness. Maybe he’d been less discreet about staring than he’d thought, but Arthur reasoned that if there was ever any occasion for indiscreetness this was it. And Eames was smiling at him. “From you? I strongly suspect I’d like anything just now.”

That settled it. Eames was, Arthur decided, officially amazing. Amazing and sharp-eyed and shirtless and that was the most wonderful response he could have given. Better yet, he didn’t have any qualms at all about Arthur tottering away from the sinks and showing his appreciation by kissing him hard.

Eames’s mouth was hot and alcohol-sweet, opening up without hesitation when Arthur’s tongue pressed for entrance. He slid his hands over as much of Eames’s back as they could possibly reach, stroking from the nape of his neck, down the curve of his spine, over the planes of his shoulders. There was a lot of skin to touch, all heat and hard-muscled, and in Arthur’s very informed opinion it was practically a crime that Eames’s shirts hid all of this.

He might actually have said that out loud, or tried to. Arthur couldn’t be sure of everything his mouth was doing, not with Eames’s tongue pushing into it, deep and wet.

All the while Eames was making sounds, breathless and harsh, like he was hungry for something he could never get enough of. When Arthur firmly sank his teeth into the plumpness of his bottom lip, Eames arched against him and released a quiet sigh. “God, do that again.” And then he was kissing him again, kissing him over and over until Arthur was panting and clumsily obeying as best he could with Eames’s fingers busy with his shirt. Jerking it free, both hands slipping underneath.

One of them went roving down Arthur’s front, giving him a squeeze between the legs that had Arthur shuddering and clinging to him, a searing wave of lust rolling through his body. “ _Fuck_.”

“Could, if you like,” Eames’s laugh was soft and filthy against his ear and Arthur could almost have answered back if Eames’s thumb wasn’t driving him to distraction by stroking a slow trail down his stomach to the button on his fly. His other hand was gripping his ass, squeezing once before drifting up the seam of his trousers.

Arthur’s teeth gritted and his nails went scratching up the broadness of Eames’s back, feeling the shift and pull of muscle underneath skin. “Not _here_ , for fuck’s sake.”

Bathroom walls weren’t much more appealing than bathroom floors or he would have let Eames press him up against one and do whatever he liked, but it was almost as good grinding into his thigh and ducking to suck a pert nipple into his mouth. Just to see.

He swirled the tip of his tongue against it and Eames actually moaned, loud and unabashed.

Under other circumstances, if he’d been a few more drinks in, Arthur might have licked down his stomach and taken more than just that into his mouth, but they were still in a public restroom and Arthur had an agenda.

The most important component of this agenda consisted of shoving his extra keycard into Eames’s pocket. Cupping him through his pants wasn’t actually part of the plan, and neither was groaning into his mouth or dragging nails down the center of his body—and then doing it again when Eames jerked and hissed—but eventually Arthur forced himself back on track. “You leave in fifteen minutes. Okay?”

And Eames was still kissing him, still caressing him, going, “Yeah, brilliant, whatever, just _go_ ,” until Arthur untangled himself from him and somehow, miraculously, did exactly that.

\---

Fifteen minutes bought him enough time to do two things.

The first was excusing himself for the night without looking too obvious. Fortunately, everybody else was still apparently engaged in a conversation about piercings. Saito was saying something about waking up with a tongue ring when he was nineteen and no one seemed to notice Arthur was two seconds away from stripping naked and treating Eames like his own personal climbing wall.

The second was darting into a corner store to pick up lube and condoms (then doubling back for a bottle each of hypoallergenic lube and waterproof lube because you just never knew and Arthur prided himself on planning in advance).

\---

Back in his hotel room, Arthur spent what seemed like a ludicrous stretch of time pacing around in his underwear and hoping Eames wasn’t at the wrong floor, or the wrong hotel, or just back at his own to laugh at him from afar. He deliberated over whether it was wise to just take his boxers off entirely and greet Eames naked at the door, assuming Eames ever showed up at it, and then he deliberated over what kind of revenge to exact if he didn’t.

By the time he heard the click of Eames arriving, Arthur had already absolved him and moved onto more important considerations, like the merits of jerking off and having him watch, just for a minute, just to work him up. Then Eames was smiling at him again and running a hand down the bare skin of his back and pressing those full, perfect lips to his own and Arthur couldn’t understand why he’d ever thought having Eames do nothing but _look_ at him was a smart course of action at all.

Getting Eames spread across the covers under him was much better.

Fifteen minutes of waiting was fifteen minutes too long and Arthur wasn’t above wrestling the shirt off him in a frenzy of limbs and fabric. The hum of Eames’s chuckle at his ear made him want to scream. “Impatient?”

“Very,” said Arthur, and lapped a straight, hot path up the center of his chest. Eames had tattoos in languages Arthur didn’t know but drank in every word of anyway, licking over script and swirls of ink, nosing at his navel, at his nipples, curiously flitting his tongue against the tip of one.

“Oh, fuck,” Eames breathed, hands tightening. Arthur exhaled a laugh into his skin and did it a second time, then a third.

Eames’s body bowed beneath him with each touch of tongue, breath shaking out of him, hands tight on Arthur’s ass. Some other time, Arthur would have loved to take things slowly and really learn Eames’s body, but for now he drank in knowledge like swiftly swallowed shots of whiskey: the soft brush of chest hair under his hands, the hardness of muscles tensing whenever his mouth made contact with skin, the way both nipples stood erect and pale pink and ripe for whatever Arthur saw fit to do with them.

“Tell me,” Arthur demanded, and he scarcely sounded like himself at all. Too rough, too near unintelligible. He kissed Eames again anyway, writhing when Eames’s tongue slipped deeper into his mouth. The slow, wet sound when he drew back was beautifully lewd. “Tell me what you like,” And he drew one of his nails across the tender flesh, watching as Eames’s lashes flitted against his cheeks. “Is that good?”

“Yeah, definitely.” Eames’s mouth was open, eyes gone dark and unfocused. “Better than. Keep—don’t stop.”

Arthur bent, scratching nails over one nipple while taking the second between his teeth and sucking, biting gently—then less gently when Eames swore and stroked his back and stuttered something that sounded like a plea.

“Fuck, Eames…” Arthur couldn’t imagine functioning on a day to day basis with that kind of sensitivity. “You’re so—how do you even—?”

“Again,” Eames cut him off, “d-do that again,” faltering over his words in a way Arthur had never heard him do before.

He drew it out as long as he could let himself, pinching each one between his fingers and teasing them into sharp points, taking them into his mouth in turn until they were wet and ruddy. Eames’s hand was on his head when Arthur finally stopped teasing him and pursed his mouth around one flushed nipple, voice strained. “ _God_ yeah, harder.” When Arthur switched to the other, Eames let his head fall back into the pillows, back arched nearly off the bedding, chest pushed out— _Christ_ , he must be such an easy fuck when he’s a woman—and fucking hell, if this was his reaction to having his nipples sucked Arthur couldn’t even begin to fathom how he might respond to having other parts of him sucked.

He was moaning, not holding back since Eames wasn’t, still letting Eames guide his head into a rhythm like he was going down on him instead of just suckling at one of his nipples, and it was more than enough to have Arthur fumbling a hand down his boxers. Somehow he had enough coordination for squeezing and grinding them together, riding his bare dick against Eames’s still-clothed one. He sank in his teeth a little more firmly, sucking hard, and then Eames was bucking against him with broken little hitches in his breath and “Arthur, Arthur, _Arthur_ ” on his lips as he threw back his head and came. Still dressed from the waist down.

Arthur couldn’t recall ever being with anyone who’d called out his name quite like that.

Eames regarded him solemnly when he opened his eyes, lifting a finger to trace Arthur’s lips. “You…you’re excellent.”

And he promptly fell back against the pillows and was snoring before Arthur had time to be outraged.

Arthur frowned at him for a minute or so in case Eames got the message and woke up. When that didn’t happen, he was sorely tempted to find a stick just to poke him with it.

In defeat, he slouched his way into the shower and brought himself off while feebly making an effort not to wallow in self-pity about how the night had turned out. When he came back out, Eames hadn’t moved an inch and didn’t so much as twitch when Arthur threw on a pair of boxers and threw himself back into bed. It didn’t seem right that Eames managed to have the upper hand even passed out in Arthur’s room. Once Arthur begrudgingly stretched out next to him, Eames seemed to gravitate towards him immediately, tucking right up to his side and contentedly burrowing into the pillows.

Even for Arthur, it was very difficult to harbor any resentment against that kind of maneuver. Eames also smelled nice, like expensive cologne and Ariadne’s gin and the soap from the bar’s restroom. And even if it wasn’t quite how he’d imagined sleeping with Eames, it wasn’t entirely a letdown.

\---

In the morning, he did his best not to feel smug when Eames’s first action was to groan and slog over the edge of the bed and into the bathroom. Arthur tried not to show his approval when he came back smelling like toothpaste and looking sheepish, stripped down to his boxers. His nipples were still swollen and hard, something Arthur’s cock noted favorably even though the rest of him wasn’t inclined to be quite so forgiving.

“If I embarrassed myself last night,” Eames said, kneading gently at Arthur’s nape, “I expect you to tell me every second of it.”

Arthur covered his phone with his hand. “We burned through every position in the Kama Sutra and then improvised a few more. I’ve got a publisher on the line as we speak.”

Actually, it was James, brightly telling him that daddy was home and making waffles and scrambled eggs, which was something Arthur was relatively confident even Cobb could handle as far as cooking was concerned. He could hear Cobb in the background laughing like the sadist he was and saying Arthur was going to visit when he was feeling better.

“Are you sick?” James asked him.

“A little,” Arthur said. “But tell your daddy that isn’t his problem, okay?”

Eames sat behind him on the bed. Arthur tried very hard not to let his eyes roll back in his head when those strong arms settled around his waist. “I fell asleep on you, didn’t I?”

Arthur scrunched up his face and nodded.

“Ariadne tells me I missed out on a fun night,” Cobb said, apparently having taken the phone for himself. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone home so early.”

Arthur didn’t know how Ariadne was up and speaking already, but Eames was kissing his jaw and he had serious doubts about being able to hold a phone to his ear for longer than a few more seconds. “Cobb, I’ve gotta go, room service is here. Eyes on the stove.” And he hung up.”

\---

“I really am sorry.” Eames’s stubble was rough against the side of his neck.

“You made a mess of everything,” Arthur told him, reaching and running a finger above the waistband of his boxers. Sighing, he twisted around, sending Eames scooting further back on the bed. “And I really,” he whispered, his mouth grazing Eames’s cheek as he spoke, “ _really_ wanted to go down on you, too.”

Eames was already reclining into the heap of pillows, drawing Arthur down with him. “You wanted that, did you? What else?” His hands drifted lower, pulling Arthur’s underwear off his hips, pulling him in until their lips were nearly touching and the quiet rumble of his voice was half-lost in a kiss. “Go on. What else did you want?

This was another thing Arthur couldn’t possibly hold a grudge against. Eames had to know that, had to be able to read more of Arthur’s weaknesses than anyone logically _should_ , had almost certainly been able to do so even before Arthur lost his mind and propositioned him in a public restroom.

Arthur planted his knees on either side of Eames’s hips anyway and smiled. “How much time do you have, exactly?” And then he was practically groaning at the sensation of Eames’s mouth on his own, the hot curl of tongue, the feel of broad hands creeping down the back of his boxers, gripping his ass, and Arthur found himself very much wishing he could do the same because Eames had an absolutely fantastic ass even though the pants he preferred rarely did it any favors.

“I wanted—” Eames kissed him again, caught a hand in his hair, and every syllable in Arthur’s mind evaporated. “Stop, lemme— _fuck_ —” Grappling for words, he halted Eames with a palm to the center of his chest, index finger skimming against one raw nipple. Eames gave a little jolt and Arthur leaned nearer, mouthing against it to ease the sting. “God, I wanted to turn you over and fuck you so hard.”

Beneath him, Eames groaned and shuddered a second time.

“Couldn’t stop—last night, in the shower—”

He couldn’t finish, Eames didn’t give him the chance, and it hardly mattered. Eames was always frighteningly perceptive, had most likely put together all the necessary puzzle pieces and surmised just what had been going through Arthur’s mind. Arthur thought of telling him the details anyway, the way he’d made himself come thinking of sucking Eames off, of fucking him afterward, of maybe pulling out just to come on his chest and lick him clean again, running his tongue over the sensitive buds of his nipples until Eames could hardly stand it. But Eames’s mouth was soft and perfect on the patch of skin behind his ear and speech, once again, wasn’t a feasible option.

Eames’s knuckles tripped a slow path up the notches of Arthur’s spine. “I really screwed that up for you, didn’t I?”

“Oh,” Arthur murmured, hardly hearing himself, “immensely.”

“Can’t I make it up to you at all?”

“That depends on many different things,” Arthur said pragmatically, struggling one leg free of his boxers as Eames rested a steadying hand on his waist.

Eames grinned, somehow devilish and innocent at the same time. “Let me try.”

\---

When he urged Arthur forward, Arthur moved without question until he was practically astride Eames’s chest. Then Eames picked up his hands, thoughtfully regarded them for a minute, and reached to place them on the headboard. “That should do, yeah?”

Arthur blinked down at him. “That…also depends. What are you doing?”

“Trying,” Eames said lightly. And he slid further onto his back, curled his arms around Arthur’s thighs, and sucked his cock into his mouth.

“ _Shit_.” At this rate, his vocabulary was going to suffer irrevocable damage through prolonged contact with Eames. Arthur didn’t give a damn.

If there was one thing Arthur believed, it was in giving credit where it was due, and Eames was racking up credit with every second. Cheeks hollowing, lips wet and pink and pursed tight around his cock, tongue pressing velvety and hot and _perfect_ in all the right places, and he still had his goddamn _boxers_ on which was unfair because Arthur was never going to get to see him naked at this rate, but now wasn’t the time to complain. Now was the time to curl his hands hard around the top of the headboard and try not to shove himself down Eames’s throat each time he bobbed his head and took him in.

Then he stopped, pulled off, stroked Arthur’s hips when he let out a low moan. “Arthur. Do it.” He sounded depraved, hoarse and wanton in a way Arthur had never heard him in real life, not as himself. Only in dreams, only for work, only as someone else.

“Keep--” He tried to get out a full sentence, but Eames was nosing curiously at the crest of his hip, which meant Arthur’s cock was brushing against the roughness of his cheek, which meant brain functions evidently weren’t a priority. “Fuck, Eames…need…don’t—don’t just _stop_.”

“I can feel how much you want to. It’s okay. I can handle it.” Eames flashed him a smile and ducked to suck delicately at the base of his erection, glances of tongue, hints of teeth. Arthur swore, smeared sweaty fingerprints into the wood of the bedstead. “Go on. Fuck my mouth.”

Another thing Arthur had always noticed about Eames was that he had a mouth on him that stopped just short of being absolutely fucking libidinous and shot far beyond it whenever there were toothpicks or drinking straws or finger foods around. At the moment, it was stained and swollen, lips somehow seeming fuller and more lush than ever, and he wanted to see it raw at the corners, wanted to squirm down and taste himself inside it.

“ _Do_ it,” Eames told him again, all grit and gravel and utter certainty, and sucked a drop of precome from the tip of him.

So Arthur did.

\---

He didn’t bother trying to keep quiet when Eames nestled his face back between his thighs and took him in fully, giving guttural moans of pleasure all the while. The time for restraint was long past. Arthur’s fingers slipped from the headboard and gripped at the sheets. “God, that-- _Eames_.”

Clearly, he really did know what he was doing, but the angle wasn’t optimal—and the act was never all that easy to begin with, in Arthur’s opinion—and Arthur could hear him gagging a little, struggling for breath. He started to move back, give some respite, but Eames gripped him and held him in place, hands pressing with near-bruising force into his ass and hips until Arthur smoothed along his shoulders and let his hips surge forward. The sounds Eames was making, equal parts voracious and pained, intrigued him much more than they alarmed him, just another facet of Eames to do exactly that.

After Eames passing out on him the previous night, Arthur felt entitled to a bit of a hair trigger of his own but he also felt obligated to at least last _slightly_ longer than Eames had. Not that he had a prayer of guessing how long they’d been at it by now.

Not that Arthur was capable of much of anything beyond petting back Eames’s hair, since he had no idea where else to settle his hands anymore, and choking out, “Eames, I’m gonna—’m gonna,” with his voice shaking almost as much as the rest of him.

Instead of easing up, Eames only gave a muffled groan around his cock, grip tightening a fraction more without actually crossing the line into pain. And Arthur was losing everything all over again, losing track of time and morals and anything that wasn’t the feel of Eames’s against him and around him and under him, and when it was all over Eames was still there, still taking everything Arthur could give him, still swallowing him down until Arthur was shuddering from overstimulation instead of from coming. Only then did Eames let him go.

Arthur collapsed on top of him like a puppet with cut strings.

Eames’s eyes had watered. There were streams on his cheeks and sweat glistened on his brow. He was passive when Arthur carefully thumbed beneath each eye, not speaking a word or doing a thing but sighing and letting Arthur sink down onto him.

Arthur kissed him wherever he could reach: his forehead, his neck, the puffiness of his lips. And he touched, far more slowly than the night before. Sober and thorough this time, fingertips tracing the scars over Eames’s ribs, the fresher one across his collarbone, glancing over nipples that were still reddened and abused. Eames gasped as Arthur’s thumb pressed against one, but smiled and stretched with undisguised self-indulgence when Arthur gave a cautious lick to it. “Jesus, your fucking mouth.”

“I think I’m supposed to be saying that to you,” Arthur pointed out, but he did it once more, fingers moving to toy with the other.

Even though Arthur knew it was coming, the hot little hitch in Eames’s breath still caught him by surprise. “Keep at it and I’ll say anything you want me to.” The tip of his tongue peeked between his lips, licentiously pink. “Please.”

And maybe it should have seemed odd, fingering and suckling them in turn as Eames stroked his head like the owner of a particularly prized housecat. Maybe everything about the past several hours should have seemed odd, but after the inception and seeing Cobb successfully pass through customs and finally being able to breathe easy for once, Arthur couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

“Eames,” Arthur informed him eventually, as solemnly as he could, “consider yourself forgiven.”

“Much obliged.”

He sat up before Arthur could reach down and divest him of his underwear. “Where’re you going?”

“I’m still in a bit of a state from the other night.” Eames’s face assumed a droll little smirk, almost self-deprecating, and somehow that was more bizarre than anything else that had happened between them. “Really should’ve done this earlier, seeing as I probably smell like a pub. Give us a few, all right?”

He kissed him once more and slipped off for the bathroom, shedding his boxers in the process and giving Arthur a perfect, unobstructed view of him from behind.

Once he heard the sound of the shower, Arthur deliberated for exactly half a second before palming the bottle of waterproof lube and following.

\---

“You don’t mind sharing, right?”

Eames, naked and soapy and just inches away, was like something out of some seriously high-quality porn. Eames grinning at him and replying, “Not at all” was immensely better than porn.

And in his time spent leaping from country to country while helping Cobb hold his life together, Arthur had watched a considerable amount of porn.

He set the bottle on the tiles and stepped in, plastering himself up against Eames from behind, nose burrowing into the soaked hair at the nape of his neck, fingers sneaking over his broad chest to play at his nipples again. Arthur was falling a little bit in love with knowing that someone as solid and strong as Eames could practically melt and mewl like a kitten from just the right touch to just the right places. It was pure selfish satisfaction, realizing that he knew how to do that to him, and he had a feeling Eames wasn’t holding it against him at all.

“Doesn’t it hurt by now?” he asked when Eames reached behind him, fingers gripping slickly at Arthur’s hip, and twisted himself around to steal a kiss.

Eames gave a wry chuckle and turned to face him. The water streaming over his body made him look like he’d wandered off the page of a muscle magazine. “I can handle a little hurting, I assure you.”

“Good to hear,” Arthur said blankly, suddenly feeling like he was back in the bathroom at the bar all over again, staring like an idiot at those wide shoulders and rippling arms and perfect abs and thinking, irrationally, that it wasn’t _fair_ that Eames looked that way, the way most laymen assumed was a necessity of leading a criminal’s life. Strong without being overwhelmingly bulked up, built like a bruiser who could conceivably punch his way through a wall if he needed to. Arthur was perfectly fit but tended to stay on the wiry side no matter what. Eames could probably pick him up with one enviable arm.

And maybe that should have been a turn-off, but it wasn’t. Eames could hold Arthur’s thighs apart with no trouble at all and suck him until he was swearing and writhing and aching to feel those thick fingers inside him, could manhandle him like a toy if Arthur chose to let him. Sometime, maybe he really would.

But now he was too absorbed by how readily Eames still responded, even now, to the smallest actions. And by having his first full-on look at Eames from the front.

Through the rush of the shower, he could hear Eames draw a sharp breath as Arthur lightly ringed a hand around him and stroked a few times. Eames’s erection was fat and flushed in his grip and Arthur hadn’t sucked anyone off in ages, wasn’t sure he could do any justice after Eames’s performance, but his body was screaming that the most appropriate reaction at this point involved his knees giving out. His mind wasn’t putting up much of a fight.

“So,” he said as nonchalantly as he could, rolling the foreskin back so he could thumb over the bare tip. “You’re not going to waste this by coming down the drain, are you?”

Beads of water clung to Eames’s lashes as he let his head fall forward. “Not planning on it.”

“I hope you’re sure.” He plucked the washcloth from Eames’s hand.

\---

Usually, Arthur was dedicated to doing a job right, but if he got distracted while giving every bit of due attention to Eames’s shoulders and just had to try a kiss or a bite or two, no one in their right mind could possibly count it against him. Eames was almost meek about allowing Arthur to scrub him off, bracing a palm on the wall and letting his eyes slide closed.

He was careful when he brought the cloth to Eames’s chest, but he felt Eames flinch all the same. Arthur distracted him as best he could by kissing his mouth, almost positive he could still taste a bit of himself in it.

When he skimmed across Eames’s stomach—selfishly, just to watch the tense and release of muscle—and then lower, Eames’s hips pushed into the touch and Arthur’s mouth actually watered. The only logical response to that involved getting to his knees there on the tile, licking the wet curve of Eames hip, and slipping his mouth over the head of his erection. He was only human.

Eames’s cock was heavy on his tongue, thick and hot and stretching his mouth so fucking perfectly when Arthur sucked him in more fully, and if he’d been drunk again he might very well have moaned around it like his life depended on it.

He took Eames into his mouth as far as he could, licking and touching and learning the taste of him, mixed with the faint tang of soap. His other hand toyed with the foreskin, pushing it up over the head to slip his tongue inside, savoring the feel of Eames giving a little quiver. With warm water spilling over his back and Eames resting a hand on his head, murmuring his name so softly it blended with the sound of shower spray, it was almost peaceful.

And he might have done some moaning anyway, sobriety be damned, but Eames didn’t seem to mind.

Then Eames shivered, fingers tightening in Arthur’s wet hair, and Arthur pulled off immediately.

“Wanna turn around? I’ll do your back.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a tart?” Eames asked conversationally.

“I wasn’t aware anyone still used the word tart as an insult at all,” Arthur said. “No one under sixty, anyway.”

Eames gripped his hair a bit harder, slanting his mouth against Arthur’s hard and quick. “Nobody said it was meant to be an insult.”

He did, however, turn to face the wall.

\---

At first, Arthur kept his actions relatively pure. He scrubbed along Eames’s back, over the ink looping down his arms, but couldn’t stop himself from reaching around to touch him again. Slipping fingers around the base of his cock and jerking just once, murmuring a warning “Not yet,” when Eames’s hips thrust into his hand.

When Arthur dropped to his knees again, dragging the washcloth down the small of his back and over the swell of his ass, purity fell out of the picture altogether. “God, your ass is fucking amazing.”

His voice was ragged and he probably sounded like a college kid, but Eames was already spreading his legs wider, asking without a word.

Arthur abandoned the washcloth, running a hand over the firm flesh while he kissed high on the inside of one thigh. He could feel Eames’s body give a tremble, hear the sound of Eames’s voice wrapping around his name like velvet, which was something he’d probably end up jerking off to whenever he had the chance. Using his thumbs to spread him open, Arthur ducked and pressed his tongue to the center of him, groaning quietly at the way Eames’s body jerked in surprise, the way he cried out before he could stop himself.

He felt Eames’s weight shift forward, mostly likely supporting himself with both hands flat to the wall, breathing hard as Arthur slipped his tongue inside, pushing his ass back as if unaware he was doing it at all. Arthur stopped, pressed against his hole with the pad of his thumb. “Yeah?”

Eames’s shoulders were tense, head bowed, water streaming over his back. “Please…c’mon.”

Arthur scrabbled blindly until he found the lube, flipping open the cap and working a finger up into him before pressing his face there and letting his tongue press inside a second time. His hair was in his eyes and the hiss of the shower made it hard to hear anything Eames said and he was drooling and moaning and using no subtlety whatsoever, just trying to curl and lick and probe his tongue in as deep and hard as possible into that snug little space he wanted inside of.

And Eames was still trying to spread his stance even more, still breathing as if he was in immediate danger of running out of air, and somehow even _that_ was sexy even though the two of them had once drowned side by side in an architectural experiment gone horribly wrong. Arthur held him open with both hands, eyes closed against the shower spray, groaning against him when Eames found his voice again. “ _Fuck_. More. Give me another.”

Even though Arthur was slow and careful about slipping a second finger inside, Eames instantly contracted around him to pull in deeper, an almost-whine in his throat and his toes curled against the tiles. Eames’s body shook, clenching alarmingly enough to give Arthur pause when he teased at him with a third finger. Instead of easing it inside, Arthur slid out of him to lick over the little patch of muscle with the tip of his tongue until it relented enough to let him press in as far as he could. He had started to get hard again, to his surprise, but Eames did things to him that he might not expect but certainly couldn’t disapprove of.

Even though it was next to impossible with Eames groaning and pushing back against him with abandon, Arthur paused. “You’re not coming yet, remember?”

“Yeah, I know, just keep going.”

Arthur slipped his fingers back into him, giving a quick pinch to the back of Eames’s thigh when he swore. “I don’t know if I should, not if you can’t hold back. You already disappointed me once.”

“Ruthless little fucker.”

That was a few steps up from getting called a tart, but Arthur drew back anyway. “Get yourself under control and finish cleaning up.”

Eames reached to help pull him up; cheeks red, mouth slack, thumb catching Arthur’s lower lip. “I’m not going to wait fifteen minutes this time.”

“I’ll try not to be too offended if you do.”

\---

In the time it took Arthur to brush his teeth and return to the bed, Eames apparently managed to get himself under control with nary a hitch and was practically at his heels, hair standing up and skin water-beaded as if he’d only given himself the hastiest of towel-offs. Arthur couldn’t keep his hands from roaming over the smooth skin of his back, from gripping his ass and kissing him again and again until Eames asked, breathless. “How d’you—?”

“On your back, spread your legs,” Arthur said immediately. And Eames obliged, perfectly obedient, propping himself up on his elbows, cock flushed and straining towards his stomach.

Porn was never going to compare after a view like that.

Arthur licked slowly into his mouth, slipping two fingers back up inside him, biting gently at his lips. “Did you touch yourself even though you weren’t supposed to?”

Eames shook his head, bracing one foot to the mattress and arching for him, squirming down onto his fingers with a hedonistic roll of his hips. It was unreal how gorgeous he was that way, muscles evident in every little shift of his body, and Arthur found himself wishing, illogically, that he could fuck him on the balcony where anyone could see.

It still astonished him that all that bulk and strength could be humbled so easily. Eames’s mouth dropped open when Arthur slipped his cock inside him, still slick and hot and open as he fucked him, still clenching around him almost painfully hard. “ _Fuck_.” Arthur laid a hand to his face, more gently than he thought himself capable of. “You’re gonna have to ease up for me, okay? Try and relax a little. I don’t want to do any damage, you’re so tight there” and Eames gave a laugh that turned into a groan partway through and muttered something that sounded like “I’d fucking well better be,” which bounced through Arthur’s consciousness like a cherry bomb.

Then he shoved himself up to take him in entirely.

Eames’s legs were parted, one of them hooked around Arthur’s back somehow, his body an arc of strength and pleasure as Arthur shoved into him. He brought a hand up to twist a nipple, just once, and the response was immediate. “ _Yeah_ , that, just like that.”

“You do it,” Arthur said, low, angling his hips and giving a vicious little shove. “Pinch your tits. Show me.”

Eames hissed, dragging nails over his chest, leaving redness in their wake, his other hand tight at the base of his dick, choking out _oh fuck_ more than once. Arthur could feel his orgasm cresting at the base of his spine when he heard him saying something else, something almost too strained and wrecked to be recognizable.

Then he realized Eames was waiting for him to tell him to come.

“Want it like this, right now?” It took all his coordination to slow down and remember how to speak in full sentences. “Or maybe you could turn over, let me ride your cock and you can come while you’re in me. You think you’d like that?”

“Christ, fuck, _yes_.” Eames blinked up at him with unfocused eye, looking close to actual pain. “But I _can’t_ , love, not this time.”

“Shhh.” Arthur kissed him messily, soothing the words with his mouth. “It’s okay. Need it so much, I know, it’s all right. You can have it.” Pushing in hard, closing his hand over Eames’s where it was still fisted at the base of his cock. “Go on, come for me.”

He’d hardly finished speaking at all before Eames threw his head back into the pillows and spilled over his stomach. Faced with a visual like that, Arthur couldn’t do anything but follow.

“Sorry,” Eames murmured after a minute, looking a bit abashed but entirely sated, and Arthur realized he’d probably heard Eames sincerely use that word more times in the last twenty-four hours than the last twenty-four months. “I wanted to, I really did.” He sighed, lips puffing out and looking even more inviting, then breaking into a rueful smile. “You’ve got no fucking clue how badly I wanted to feel you come on my cock, but I couldn’t. It was too much.”

“This is probably the only time anyone’s ever said this to you,” Arthur said, tossing the condom towards the wastebasket and hoping hand-eye coordination was on his side, “but I appreciate your honesty.”

Eames was laughing, far too guilelessly for the conman he was. Arthur was on the verge of mentioning as much, but there were far too many muscles doing far too many distracting things when Eames turned onto his side and reached to pull him in close. With Eames humming and stroking over him when he tongued idly at a nipple once more, Arthur was ready to fall asleep all over again.

“You lasted longer than I expected,” he admitted, rather distractedly, Eames’s fingers having found their way into his hair again. “Took direction better, too.”

“I’m a well of surprises. And I’ll take quite a bit if I think the end result is worth it.”

Arthur let his fingers trail through his chest hair, drawing a slow circle around one nipple. “Have you ever had anyone use clamps on you? Because I kind of like the idea of giving it a try.”

Eames opened his eyes. “Go on.”

Arthur already had plans anyway and he detailed them: fastening a pair of nipple clamps to him, then riding down onto his lap and making Eames fuck him so agonizingly slowly they were both shaking and covered in sweat before he’d come. Or maybe taking off the clamps and really making Eames squirm by sucking and licking at him with ice in his mouth, pinching the chill away afterward. “I’d keep going until you couldn’t handle it anymore and had to beg me to stop. Or maybe I’d suck your cock, since the ice would make it take longer for you to come. But I wouldn’t let you, not until you were in me.”

This was part of why Arthur didn’t generally indulge himself when he was on the job, not for anything more than a quick fuck with minimal words exchanged: he couldn’t trust himself to shut up after getting laid. Criminality, no matter how highbrow, wasn’t something that lent itself to that sort of thing. He gave Eames a poke in the ribs. “And I do still want you to fuck me. If you can last.”

Eames stared at him contemplatively for a long time. Arthur felt something lurch in his gut, worried he’d said too much after all.

“What is it?”

“Before the week is out,” Eames said decisively, “I’m sending Ariadne a fruit basket.”


End file.
